Beyond the Mines
by Ivydoll
Summary: Hobbit cuddle pile.


**Beyond the Mines**

* * *

Merry hung his head; exhaustion was dragging him into the ground, nearer his feet than the clouds. Beside him, Pippin collapsed with no less jumbling and immediately rested his head on Meriadoc's left shoulder. Nearby, Sam, looking for all the world as though his back, knees, and mind had gone out, quietly stooped about, scaring up a group of rocks to build a fire between. Frodo, the last of them hovered nearby, looking sleepless and harried and torn between sinking to the ground forever and somehow helping. Somehow; Frodo knew he was useless when it came to these points.

"Master Samwise," it was Aragorn's voice cutting in, coming from above them and beyond where he'd rested his hands on Frodo's shoulders, "why don't you and Frodo, and Merry-and-Pippin get the first chance at rest."

How long had it been? Only a few hours since those fucking mines?

Merry scowled darkly and Pippin had somehow begun to hold his hand. Sam's blonde head bobbed up, a stark exhaustion coloring his rounded features- less so, now. Though it seemed everyone had lost weight.

Frodo began to shake his head, to startle and choke out a declination, but Sam, some strange, hidden energy found, strode across the way and handed Aragorn what he'd foraged, quietly saying, "That's... that's a good idea, mister Frodo."

The darker-haired hobbit glanced furtively from his friend to the ranger, to the other two hobbits. Merry gazed back levelly, and Pippin nodded slowly after running one dirtied sleeve across his aching eyes.

"All right..." Frodo blinked rapidly, his vision turning sour for a moment as Sam grasped him at at elbow. "If... if that's all right..."

"Hush now, mister Frodo, we'll take care of things," the chubbier hobbit chided softly, though it held an emotionless that was vaguely startling. Frodo looked upward the scant inches to Sam's eyes, and his heart nearly broke at the heaviness of Sam's features and motion. Before he could comment or beg Sam to smile for him, Merry was in his field of vision, looking as world-weary as death.

"Look at them," Boromir was saying, offhandedly, miserably, "They've been destroyed."

Legolas pressed his vision against the four halflings, frowning. The littlest one, Pip, was spreading moss and leaves all across the ground at the lee of two trees, while Sam was steadying Frodo out of his pack. "A heaviness has settled on them," he intoned after a moment, "And it's right for you to worry."

Boromir nodded, Legolas' neutral tone sparing him the man's embarrassment at his own affections for the two trouble-making halflings. "I don't want them scarred like us."

"They will be," Legolas said quietly, and turned to touch Boromir's shoulder in passing, "But not so deeply they won't heal together."

Aragorn settled the firewood in front of them, refusing to look; perhaps in case one or more of the lot might send him spiraling into a fit of tears he would be unable to stop.

Pippin, reeling back from his task, watched numbly as the big people made around with the usual, every-day tasks of fire-building and hunting for the day. He turned back to his work, which was being covered by Merry with two of the blankets. It was so utterly normal. Above him, birds were flittering from one branch to the next, and singing unobtrusively. The sun was low in the sky, and Gimli was humming a tune so soothing, he nearly fell over into Frodo, who wouldn't have been able to catch him.

"There, then, Took, lay down a bit."

He looked up gratefully, especially placated when a familiar hand went into his coppery brown curls and tousled them affectionately. It was Merry and he had a blanket across his shoulders. "Merry... is it..."

But he couldn't think of anything to say as he was pushed closer to the center of the mat, closer to Frodo, who looked now shell-shocked and hollow with his hands clasped between his knees and his blues eyes intermittently filling with tears. And without warning Pippin's lip began to tremble.

Sam occasionally made eye contact with Merry as they herded the other two into a pile, and when he did, he wondered if he looked as wretched. "They're making along fine without us, aren't they?" he said tiredly, and Merry nodded, glancing at the big people and feeling safe, at least, with Boromir, whom he loved dearly.

"I suspect it's..." but Merry's train of thought ended abruptly around a yawn which ached deep in his jaw.

Sam seemed almost to smile, as he curled around Frodo's shivering back. It was not cold; not terribly. Together, Merry and the blonde hobbit tugged blankets betwixt them, until Frodo and Pippin's curls tangled together in closeness. Pip bit his lip, hoping to stop its trembling, even as the warmth of Merry at his back began to comfort him beyond description, and finally reached out to tug one of Frodo's hands into his own. He clasped rounded fingers around the older hobbit's, and squeezed.

Warmth would come back to them, eventually.


End file.
